ENGLISH
Retracing the history of the Tuscan straw hat in the 18th and 19th centuries

“Retracing the history of the Tuscan straw hat in the 18th and 19th centuries”: this is the topic of the forthcoming conference at the Spadolini Foundation New Anthology pertaining to the initiatives for the “Festa della Toscana” (November 30th 2018). The main goal is, thanks to new documents that have been retrieved from archives – the National Library and the State Archive in Florence, and archives from places of the straw industry – to review the transition from modest hat producers to actual factories, some of which are still active today and are renowned worldwide.
So many curious facts in this ancient story that involved families and entire towns! Women, who learned this skill already at a very young age, played a crucial role in the creation of the straw hat. This allowed wives of sharecroppers to raise the household income and ensured the “pigionali” (day labourers) with a sure salary. Between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century – the peak success time for straw hats sales – even men began to weave straw, attracted by this lucrative labour.
However, the “craft” remained feminine: we must remember, in fact, that from the mid 19th century the best “trecciaiole” were kept in rooms – for certain periods of the year – to create the samples that had to remain secret. A success that spread even abroad, so much so that at the court of Louis XVI, a straw hat was a necessary garment in the wardrobe of French aristocracy, as it helped protect oneself from sunrays during countryside strolls, and its wide shape evoked the simplicity of the pastoral world, almost as if to “purify” the opulence of those years. Switzerland, England and, later on, the United States, were among the first countries interested in the exportation of this product.
Straw hats were produced everywhere in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Signa – which is home of the Museum of straw – was one of the main centres of production. It is here that Domenico Michelacci – who came along in 1714 – had the stroke of genius of starting a new kind of crop (ignored by most) that allowed him to obtain a long and thin thread particularly suited for weaving: the stem needed to be without folds and was shorn before the ripening of the spike.
Florence was among the main market for the trade of raw materials and threaded hats. Since this was not a food product, for many years it was prohibited for vendors to have stands at the old Market or lay out their merchandise on the ground: they were only allowed “stroll” and offer their products to people who walked by. The product’s increasing success led to the concession of specific, sedentary places, until moving – during the 19th century – under the loggia of the new Market. We will speak about this during the conference, together with Eugenio Giani, President of the Regional Council of Tuscany, researchers Alessia Artini and Silvia Melloni, Luca Faldi, Vice Superintendent of the Archival and Bibliographical Superintendence of Tuscany and Giuseppe Grevi, President of the Consortium “Il Cappello di Firenze”.

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